SAMPLE PAPER FROM START TO FINISH

Sometimes it can be easier to reach a goal if you have a model to guide your own efforts Accordingly, this site assembles all of the pieces of an essay assignment [(A) the assignment itself, (B) an historical document and a map that serve as the sources for the assignment, and (C) the FINISHED student essay with explanatory notes], allowing you to follow one paper from start to finish.

Essay Assignment

Length: 450 – 550 words

Historical Background: 'Abd al-‘aziz al-Bakri is one of the most important sources available on West African history in the post-classical period, including the great empire of Ghana. Al-Bakri was a Muslim scholar in Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus), who died at an advanced age in 1094. Of his many writings, two major geographies have survived. Al-Bakri never traveled in Africa, but was able to draw upon extensive historical sources from tenth-century work on Africa and many travelers and merchants coming from the Sudan. Although Muslim writers were often contemptuous of non-Islamic societies, Al-Bakri was unusually non-judgmental compared to his contemporaries.

Question: How can the evidence contained in Al-Bakri’s description of West Africa and the accompanying map be interpreted to demonstrate the nature of the economy of the various societies he describes? Be precise and use quotations – both direct and indirect – from Al-Bakri to support your argument.

Hints:

1) The region Al-Bakri describes is indicated on the map by the brown shaded area. Medieval Arabs mistakenly thought that the Niger river was part of the Nile river that they knew from Egypt; so, where Al-Bakri refers to “Nil” that river is in fact the Niger as indicated on the map. (You may be curious in this map of the Arab vision of Africa at the time.) Not all of the towns Al-Bakri mentions appear on the map, but Tadmekka (Tadmakka in Al-Bakri’s text) does.

2) The map indicates the ecological regions of West Africa – be sure to locate the following on the map: (A) Desert region (B) Forest Region (C) Savanna (grassland) Region (D) Salt Mines (E) Gold Mines. DOING SO WILL HELP YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION

3) be sure to note the trade routes indicated on the map

Steps in Writing the Paper

1) Your first task is to identify the relevant evidence from Al-Bakri. Since you are not writing a book-report that summarizes the whole of the documents, but rather analyzing the documents in order to answer a specific and narrow question (the nature of the economies in West Africa) not everything Al-Bakri writes will be relevant to your essay. See discussion of step 1
.
2) After identifying the relevant evidence, you need to make sense of it by looking for patterns and recombine information to make generalizations. Moreover, you need to connect the information from the map to the document itself. See discussion of Step 2

3) Having done step 2, you need to construct a thesis statement and outline See discussion of Step 3


See the final essay with explanatory remarks